Why games still aren't photo-realistic?

Yeah.. don't need to be... I want to play videogames, if I want real life I'd go outside.

I could care less about realism in games. I play games for the creativity I don't want to play a movie.

"Photo-realism" doesn't even make sense in the context of trying to create a convincing 3D space. Our visual reality is determined by the healthy human eye. It sees things the camera doesn't pick up. Photography distorts color, proportion, flattens space. Photorealism is a genre of art that tries to recreate the characteristic of the photographic image, warts and all. This is not conducive to realistic three dimensional space. People abuse the term, they don't know any better, but if you go in with a certain mindset, it's going to reflect in the outcome of your work.

Why aren't games 1:1 replication of nature yet? Because natural visual phenomenon is very complex and we lack the tools to recreate things like true atmospheric perspective (Depth of Field is a shoddy workaround that doesn't take into account how atmospheric perspective or the eye's selective focus work). And with the way people throw around the term "photorealistic," I'm not sure if people understand what tools need to be developed for this to be achieved.

Because you touch yourself at night TC.

Real-time rendered pixel density isn't there yet.

@TorqueHappens08 said:

One of these is Gran Turismo 6(PS3).

Or none of them could be GT6.

Obviously the bottom one, since it doesn't have an accurate shadow on the ground. And the one on top has dirt and marks on the body.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and there isn't any light reflections on the bottom one either, there is merely a general light source.

The bottom one doesn't look realistic, it just looks heavily post-processed.

Even in a myriad of major motion pictures, that are not interactive, and are able to use an insane amount of computing power to generate incredibly realistic looking graphic models, the CGI models still look noticeably fake

PC gamers, stop being so immature with the finger pointing at console gamers for all of your pc gaming hardships. They have nothing to do with why your PC isn't pumping out the graphics it could be. What is this? You're angry that devs are "catering" to the console fanbase? Whatever. Look at the real reason. Truth is, either your hardware isn't as powerful as you think and it can be that the only new things you're getting with new GPUs are better frames and resolution, or the developers don't feel like pushing your hardware and it's just laziness. You may think console gamers are getting played but so are you. You're pumping out hundreds just for a GPU and it is not even properly utilised to it's potential. But hey, why would they stop? You're going to keep crying, buying their games, promoting their games, and they will just swim in your wallet. You better make a change. You would figure that this would have been over by now since PC has such a mature fanbase... a mature fanbase that cries about everything like children.

This is a silly thing to say. Diminishing returns are still a factor. Even if there weren't consoles, the vast majority of PC owners aren't gonna have top of the line PC's. they're gonna ghave lower end PC's which means that's where the money is. Even accepting that it's POSSIBLE to get "true" photorealistic graphics today in anything other than the most simple games, you'd srtill need some serious hardpower to run it. The vast majority of PC users aren't playing games on a damn supercomputer, because that'd be expensive as shit. So the games that require that kind of hardware tend to not get made. Even if it CAN be done, it'd be a huge waste of money. It's not a matter of consoles holding us back. It's a matter of CURRENT TECHNOLOGY holding us back. We're not going to see those kinds of graphics until technology has progressed to the point where it's cheap enough to implement that technology in devices that are inexpensive enough to be viable for commercial use. And no...PC's aren't there yet either.

I'm scared of photorealistic graphics.

I dunno....I'm not sure how I feel about killing ppl in COD or Farcry when they look and move actually realistically.

Thats gonna be a trip in and of itself.

Honestly though....what I find more important...looks wise....is fluid movement.

The real question is, "why are cgi movies not photorealistic yet?"

Well, I'd also argue that for most purposes it looks good enough. Which I think also plays at least a small part in what's holding graphics back (and that's IF graphics are being held back, which I don't particularly think they are). Things like photos and movies are noninteractive. They exist and they get the viewer invested, but there's not the active element of being able to screw shit up if you don't pay attention to what's relevant. In other words, I feel like the interactive nature of games (particularly heavily action oriented games that require a quick response) distracts from the gamer's ability to scrutinize details. In a lot of cases, you don't have time or else you die and you fail. The very nature of a lot of games is to usually get a general sense of what's going on and then to react to immediate threats instead of scrutinizing every detail. And by that standard, it's very easy to argue that a lot of games have gotten to the point where their graphics are "good enough". That IF more time and money is gonna be poured into a game, that that time and money would be better spent on refining mechanics or enriching the overall lore and design than on making every object act and look as if it was actually real. In principle, I wouldn't be surprised if it's now possible to make really simple games that look "photorealistic" on current (even if only) high end commercially viable technology. Still...PRIORITIES, PEOPLE. With limited money and time and other resources, I would GENERALLY rather that effort be put into gameplay than on making lamps look amazing. this is not to say that I'm shitting on graphical improvements. I'm just saying that to a large extent, graphics have been "good enough for most purposes" for a while. But these are GAMES, and GAMEPLAY is usually the most important factor, so I'd rather resources be put into gameplay. Or refining story, since story is often something that contributes to overall investment in the game and draws attention from a character's hair not quite looking real. Bottom line: graphics are great, but what I primarily need is something to make me invested in the game. In that regard, true photorealistic graphics aren't THAT important, especially considering that graphics are usually "good enough." Lord knoes I've seen plenty of movies that look 100% "photorealistic", but I still can't get invested in them because of story or pacing or acting or whatever. Photorealism is great and all, but it's not THAT important, at least not inherently. After all, most movies (and obviously PHOTOS) are photorealistic, and that still doesn't keep the majority of them from sucking ass. Photorealism is nice in an ideal situation, but it's USUALLY not the most important thing. The most important thing is to get the audience invested. Somehow. Focus on that, then shift into photorealism only when it's either absolutely necessary or when it starts becoming cheap enough to be ubiquitous. otherwise, i find that people are usually wiling to accept stuff that looks fake as shit IF it gets them invested in some other way.

The Uncanny Valley.